For Sale

Ressurections: When it Turns

| ellenanneeddy

Tomorrow I have my first sole artist showing in over 10 years, I’ve been working for this for 2 years.

Tomorrow I will be at the Galesburg Art Center for a sole artist Pop Up Sale. I’ll have threads, fabrics and quilts all on sale for the day. Out in public.

Sometimes your art is your life. Sometimes your life is your art. I’ve had many people tell me they weren’t an artist, or that they no longer could do their art. I did not understand that when I was younger. I leapt from one project to another, I lived and breathed dye and thread.

But it changed. At one point I was teaching more than I was showing. And that was an obsession too. I opened as many good doors as I could for the people in my classes. Demoed daily on unfamiliar machines. Learned to help people find their way to do what they were working towards.

And then it changed. There weren’t the same opportunities. The teaching slowed. And the passion for my work was gone. I sank into the sunset, learned to knit and crochet, Dealt with my far too worn knees.

It got kind of grim. There are times when your art is your life. But when it isn’t, you really do have to make your life an art. Find ways to feed your eye. Ways to make your heart beat. Allow things to go fallow, I wrote three books, which I believe have probably annoyed everyone who read them. Raised a garden and some neighbor kids. Kept a pack of greyhounds. And I pretty much stopped quilting.

That was when Don came into my life. I’ve never been a believer in love in terms of a noun. I believe it as a verb. It’s not a thing, that you own. It’s actions made on choice. It was an astonishment.

Alumni and Faculty Book Signing; Homecoming 2018

I knew Don at college. But I don’t think either of us knew each other at all. He stood by me as I got my knees fixed. Three knees later, he gave me his home as a studio. And came with me every day as I worked on one piece after another. He opened doors for me I thought were shut forever. I don’t have words for it, but thank you is a start.

When I announced this show, someone posted on the list that she hadn’t heard from me in years and she thought I was retired. I wrote her back that I hadn’t died yet.

It’s changed. I’m in that place where I can’t stop working. I’m on fire. There are resurrections. I’m still here.

I don’t remember who made the post. But I have some hopes for her.

I hope she has a passion that lights her life.
I hope that when her life changes, as life does, she finds good things that heal her heart. I hope she understands that she is a human being and not a human doing. That we all have times when we can produce things and times when we cannot.That there are ways back, not to where we were but to what is next.

I hope she gets a resurrection too.

Tomorrow, August 27th, I’ll be at the Galesburg Art Center, 341 East Main Street, in Galesburg, IL from 9:00 to 3:00. I desperately need to sell some things. I’m out of dye, steam a seam, fabric and steam. But being out of things means I working as hard as I can. I am so grateful. To be able again.

Springing into a new web site

| ellenanneeddy

Spring is here. I can tell by the gale like winds and the sea of mud puddles. I’m only hoping the radishes I planted don’t get fooled and come up too soon.

Along with the spring, I have two new series of quilts I’ve been working on all year showcased. The Marsh Heron quilts are herons and water birds in swamp lands. I’ve always loved herons, and I’ve really played with them here. The Bird Feeder Series is about how a garden naturally feeds birds with the flowers within it. I’ve always understood that a garden isn’t all about people. It’s about every one who uses it. Particularly the birds. There are 11 new large quilts that I am so proud of. See if you can find them.

So it seemed time to freshen up my web site. I’m not hopeless with tech, but wordpress has pretty much kicked me around the room in an effort on my part to understand what’s under the hood. I’ve been so frustrated with showing off quilts easily and well. And people have told me they couldn’t find them easily. I think this time we have it licked. I put in a new theme and spent a week making sure all the links clicked through.

So, I ask you if you would please visit the new portfolio section of my page, and let me know if it works for you. It should lead you to a gallery of quilts, where you can click on any of them and get the information page. Hopefully it will be much easier for you to see all the quilts, without having to hunt for them through the blogs.

And there are some great new quilts to see.

In celebration of that, I’m putting the quilts on 20% off sale. If you click through the Etsy button you’ll find the sale price. If you are a quilt owner, and you would like to trade up a quilt you own for a different piece, let me know. You always have trade up rights.

Please let me know if this site works better for you. Thanks!

Ellen

Made by Accident: An Approach to Organic Design

| ellenanneeddy

Some people spend a lot of time designing their art. They sketch. They plan. They build models. I’m so impressed. They can even tell you what it means.

I wish I could do that. I just can’t. It seems all of my art comes from random things, started but not finished, that I found later and made or put more random things on them. It sounds like a dreadfully chaotic way to make art. It is. It’s hellish for commissions. But it’s how I am. And if you want me to tell you what it’s about, you’ll need to wait several years until I get that straightened out. I am not in control of my art. All I can do is attend to it regularly, and do what it demands.

What is central to the process is the time stuff sticks around, on a photo wall before I commit to the next step. Is it right? Does it need to move three inches left? I’ve ruined many pieces by bulling through and finishing them without taking time to really look at them first.

I’m not helpless about this. And I’m not unskilled. It’s just the way it is. I suspect I’m not alone.

Art is a living thing, and a piece of art will tell you what it wants. And in the end, you didn’t so much make it as assist in it’s birth.

I laid out the background for this almost a year ago. Decided it needed white flowers on a pond edge. Didn’t know what else it needed. Lost it. Found it again. Lost it once more and then it resurfaced in the last cleaning. Somewhere in there I’d drawn a swimming frog in a batch of frogs. He didn’t get embroidered with the other batch, and I found him and thought, I really ought to finish him but I didn’t have a place to put him.

Then the piece of fabric surfaced. So I embroidered the frog, put in some water and rocks and a moon. Looked at it a while. HATED the moon. That almost never happens. But it just didn’t work.

When I was embroidering a batch of bugs and did three luna moths. One left over one just fluttered on to my quilt where the unfortunate moon was. White flowers and more water later it was done.

Did it take me two weeks? Or the two years to have the pieces fall together? Even I don’t know. I do know that fallow part of the process where you just stare at it, or lose it, or find it in a pile is an important part of the process, not to be missed or dissed.

I don’t know how to teach this kind of design. I can only show it in process. But I believe in it. I believe art grows like life, randomly, without sense, half by purpose but largely by accident, as it is. I can only stand back and watch.

Ornaments and Ornamentation: Core Free motion Stitchery

| ellenanneeddy
1006-21 Dancing in the Dark Detail

Of all the techniques I do as an artist, nothing is harder than embroidered appliques. They’re images made completely from thread and zigzag stitch. They take more time and can distort easily. But there are times I insist on making them. Why? Because they’re amazing. They’re made from layer after layer of thread. The eye blends the colors into a whole, but since they are separately stitched, they retain their bright, clear colors.

They are the core of my art. My strongest clearest images, imagined in thread.

I’d started a bunch of bugs for this quilt. Of course I overdid. Actually, I meant to.

I’m pretty protective of these embroideries. They are the most ornamental part of my work and the most time intensive part of it. I always use the left overs on something else. But they are so usable. I’ve put them on denim jackets, and an ordinary jacket becomes an art statement. I once made elephant heads for the bottom of a gown someone wore for an award ceremony. They get around. They make ordinary things, extraordinary.

Last year I put some of these embroideries up separately on Etsy. They were so popular that I thought I’d offer them this year. You can order them either just as an applique, or as a pin or an ornament.

So here’s a sampling of them. They are all unique, none alike, but they’ll shine like a star anywhere you put them.

1

You can purchase these ornaments at my Etsy Shop

Holiday Sale! Every Quilt on Sale Now!

| ellenanneeddy

You’ll find quilts in the store. Click through to the Etsy link and your 20 percent discount is on the listings.

These delightful little works go for under $100!

Or go directly to my Etsy Store.

Need it gift wrapped? We can do that!

Worried about getting someone the wrong quilt? I always exchange quilts for owners who want to trade up, or new owners who would like to make a different selection. Just let me know.

Dye and Dye Again: I Always Need More Fabric. Don’t You?

| ellenanneeddy

Using commercial fabric feels like wearing someone else’s panties. That being said, I’m dyeing again next week.

It’s not that it’s not pretty. It’s gorgeous. But I need fabric with light sources where there’s room for ideas to grow. Besides, I’m out of brown and I need to make a tree for my owl.

I’ve always made fabric available to people, because there are always gorgeous fabrics that just don’t work for my plans. And I always wanted to make what I use available to students trying to learn what I do. But hand dyed light source fabric is like every wonderful thing, addictive. Once you use it, it will feel like yours in a way that commercial fabric just can’t. I love having fabric that is individual to each piece and never really repeatable.

Ironing with a mangle

Your fabric arrives prewashed, starched, ironed and needle ready!

I sell my fabric two ways. You can set up a video call with me and pick out your fabric personally.

Or you can tell me what you need and I’ll dye it for you. Do you want pink sunsets? Deep woods? Meadows drenched in sunlight. You can do that with hand dyed fabric backdrops, before you stitch at all. That’s why I use it. You may want to as well.

Why build a landscape when you can have it dyed.

This batch is the 44″ dyer’s cloth from Dharma. It should be breathtaking. It’s a short dye run for me, but I’m happy to dye fabric just for you. It sells for $24 per yard, usually in 1/2, 1, and 1 1/2 yard pieces, unless you tell me otherwise.

Call me at 219-617-2021 or use this contact form to order the fabric that is dyed just for you. Or to pick from a collection of instant backgrounds that will jump start your next project. For more information about my fabric check out these posts. The Dance of Dye, and Well, I’ll Be Dyed.